WHIT- that it is not lawful to acquiesce in the bishop's deprivation of Abp. Cant. any person, excepting (upon consultation with the neighbour GIFT, Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, book 3. p. 86. ing ministers and the parishioners of the minister deprived) they find it expedient; otherwise the person censured is to continue his function till he is ejected by the civil magistrate. Farther, they resolve, it is not lawful to appear in a bishop's court, unless with a protestation against his authority; that bishops are not to be acknowledged either for doctors, elders, or deacons the reason is, because they have no ordinary calling. That touching the restoring their ecclesiastical discipline, it ought to be prudentially managed, and suggested to the people only as occasion shall serve; that the people are not to be publicly solicited to the practice of the discipline, till they are better instructed in the theory. And lastly, that men of more improved understandings are to be privately dealt with to come over to the discipline, as far as may be consistent with the peace of the Church." Thus far the provincial synod of the Warwickshire classis. At this assembly the Book of Discipline received a farther approbation, and was subscribed by Cartwright, Fenn, and several other ministers; it was likewise handed about to other classes for subscription. When this book came to NorthampIdem. p. 88. ton for the purpose last mentioned, the brethren agreed to a general censure of each other: this was done partly by way of penance for their former conformity to the Church, and partly to prepare them for a devout submission to the Book of Discipline. It seems this reprimanding each other was done with so much indiscretion, satire, and particularity, that it weakened their correspondence, brought them almost to a general rupture, and made some of the ministers come off from those assemblies'. However, the greatest part cemented and kept together; and to make way for the introduction of their project, and prepare the people for so great a change, they thought it necessary to appear farther in print. They had two points to manage; to answer some books written in defence of episcopacy, and to draw an odium upon the bishops, and bring them under contempt. Dr. John Bridges, dean of Sarum, and afterwards bishop of Oxford, published a book entitled, "A Defence of 1 Thus the Puritans, having vented their spleen on the episcopal order, thought it magnanimous to satirize themselves. This proceeding may be compared to the practice of the Flagellants, who were never contented till they had flogged one another all round. BETH. the Government of the Church of England." It was chiefly ELIZAlevelled against Beza, but so contrived as to meet with the Puritans' objections. To this an answer was returned, called, "A Defence of the godly Ministers against the Slanders of Dr. Bridges." Bridges replied, and the other party published a rejoinder. About the same time Dr. Some, master of Peterhouse in Cambridge, published a discourse against Penry, and exposed the passion and weakness of this warm Puritan. This book was soon after answered in a libel called, " Mr. Some laid open in his Colours." But the defence of their tenets, and repelling an attack was not thought enough, though, to speak properly, themselves were generally the aggressors. But now they were resolved to manage the war more vigorously, to assault their enemies' camp, and charge the head-quarters of the Church and in this quarrel they scrupled the use of no weapons, or method of management. Where they could not reason, they took care to rally and rail: to furnish libels and buffoonery against the bishops, four of the most hot-headed and seditious of the party clubbed their talents. This junto Penry, Throgmorpublished a great many venomous pamphlets under the dis- ton, Eudale guise of "Martin Mar-Prelate." Of this kind may be reckoned, and Fenner. "The Epistle to the Convocation House:" "The Epitome:" pamphlets "The Demonstration of Discipline:" "The Supplication:" some of the published by "Diotrephes:" "Martin's Minerals:" "Have you any work for a Cooper?" "Penry's Epistles sent from Scotland:" "The- bishops and ses Martinianæ, or Martin Junior:" "The Protestation of England. Martin :" "Martin Senior:" "More Work for the Cooper1:" “A Dialogue setting forth the tyrannical Dealing of the Bishops against God's Children." Scandalous Puritans against the Church of Paul's Life of Archbp. To silence these clamours, and disable this railing, which Whitgift. was carried to the last degree of coarseness and passion, Bancroft's Dangerous Whitgift and the rest of the bishops procured a grave and Positions, solid answer to these invectives; it was entitled, "An Admoni- cap. 11, 12. tion to the People of England," and particularly levelled against Martin Mar-Prelate. But it seems their obstinacy and assurance was such, that there was no reasoning them out of their rudeness. It was thought therefore the best way to answer a "fool according to his folly," and combat these pamphleteers at 1 This was an attack on Cooper, who died bishop of Winchester, 1594. It was he who wrote the "Admonition," mentioned in the next paragraph, against John Penry, or Ap-Henry, alias Martin Mar-Prelate, who paid for his temerity with his life. GIFT, WHIT- their own weapon. They were attacked in this manner by one Abp. Cant. Tom Nash, in his "Pasquil" and "Marforio," his "Counterscuffle," "Pappe with a Hatchet," &c. This Nash had a genius for satire, a lively turn, and spirit for the encounter; by these advantages, together with that of the cause, he broke the enemy at two or three charges, and drove them out of the field. Cambden, Eliz. 607. As for the Puritan libels, they were generally printed by one Walgrave: he had a travelling press for this purpose; it was removed from Moulsey near Kingston-upon-Thames, to Fausley in Northamptonshire. The next stage was Norton; from Norton it was shifted to Coventry; from thence it was carried to Wellstome in Warwickshire, and from thence to Manchester, where both press and printer were seized by the earl of Derby. The charge of the press was borne by Knightly of Fausley, a gentleman of good fashion. This man was drawn into the cause by Snape and some other leading ministers of that county. But these enterprising people were brought into the Star-chamber, and in danger of receiving a smart correction. But here, as it happened, the person they had most insulted, appeared their friend. For upon their submission, Archbishop archbishop Whitgift solicited strongly for them, and prevailed Whitgift solicits for with the court to discharge their imprisonment, and remit their the discharge fines. It is somewhat remarkable, that the Puritans were most of some Puritans, and active in setting up their discipline, and scattering their scanprocures it. dalous pamphlets, when the Spanish Armada was sweeping the seas, and menacing the kingdom with a conquest. It is probable they thought themselves privileged at this juncture, and that the government had neither leisure nor courage to call them to an account. This mutinous behaviour under so terrible a crisis lost them the friendship of the earl of Leicester and Bancroft's sir Francis Walsingham. These great men, as it is said, Dangerous declared they had been horribly abused with their hypocrisy. This, though a late, might be a serviceable discovery to their patrons; for the earl died this year, and Walsingham within two years after. Positions. That Walsingham abated in his affection to the Puritans, may be collected from his letter to monsieur Critoy, a French gentleman. From hence it appears, at least in Walsingham's opinion, that the queen was willing to indulge liberty of conscience, provided it might have been granted without danger BETH. to the state that she was forced on rougher expedients in her ELIZAown defence and that it was only the mutiny and misbehaviour of the Papists, which drew the severity of the laws upon them. The letter is a remarkable paper: I shall give it the reader in the secretary's words. “SIR, Walsing Critoy, secre France, in “Whereas you desire to be advertised touching the proceed- Secretary ings here in ecclesiastical causes, because you seem to note in ham's letter them some inconstancy and variation, as if we sometimes in- to Monsieur clined to one side, sometimes to another; and, as if that tary of clemency and lenity were not used of late, that was used in the defence of beginning: all which you impute to your own superficial under- the queen's proceedings standing of the affairs of this state; having, notwithstanding, against recusants of her majesty's doing in singular reverence, as the real pledge both kinds. which she hath given unto the world of her sincerity in reli- Cabala, sive gion, and of her wisdom in government, well meriteth. glad of this occasion to impart that little I know in that matter to you, both for your own satisfaction, and to the end you may make use thereof towards any that shall not be so modestly and so reasonably minded as you are. I find therefore her majesty's proceedings to have been grounded upon two principles. I Scrinia am Sacra, 3d edit. p. 372. “1. The one, that consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by the force of truth, with the aid of time, and the use of all good means of instruction and persuasion. "2. The other, that the causes of conscience, when they exceed their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and contempt, though coloured with the pretence of conscience and religion'. "According to these principles, her majesty at her coming to the crown, utterly disliking the tyranny of Rome, which had used by terror and rigour to settle commandments of men's faith and consciences, though, as a prince of great wisdom and magnanimity, she suffered but the exercise of one religion, yet her proceedings towards the Papists were with great lenity, expecting the good effects which time might work in them. And therefore her majesty revived not the laws made in the 28th and 35th years of her father's reign, whereby the oath of supre These two great principles of policy are admirably stated by Walsingham, and deserved to be deeply impressed on the public. GIFT, WHIT macy might have been offered at the king's pleasure to any Abp. Cant. subject, though he kept his conscience never so modestly to himself; and the refusal to take the same oath, without farther circumstance, was made treason. But contrariwise, her majesty, not liking to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts, or affirmations, tempered her law so, as it restraineth every manifest disobedience, in impugning and impeaching advisedly and maliciously her majesty's supreme power, maintaining and extolling a foreign jurisdiction. And, as for the oath, it was altered by her majesty into a more grateful form, the hardness of the name and appellation of supreme head was removed, and the penalty of the refusal thereof turned only into disablement to take any promotion, or to exercise any charge, and yet with liberty of being re-invested therein, if any man should accept thereof during his life. But after, when Pius Quintus had excommunicated her majesty, and the bulls of excommunication were published in London, whereby her majesty was in a sort proscribed: and that thereupon, as upon a principal motive, or preparative, followed the rebellion in the north; yet, because the ill humours of the realm were by that rebellion partly purged, and that she feared at that time no foreign invasion, and much less the attempt of any within the realm, not backed by some potent succour from without, she contented herself to make a law against that special case of bringing and publishing any bulls, or the like instruments; whereunto was added a prohibition upon pain, not of treason, but of an inferior degree of punishment, against the bringing in of Agnus Dei, hallowed bread, and such other merchandise of Rome, as are well known not to be any essential part of the Romish religion, but only to be used in practice as love tokens, to enchant the people's affections from their allegiance to their natural sovereign. In all other points her majesty continued her former lenity. But when, about the twentieth year of her reign, she had discovered in the king of Spain an intention to invade her dominions, and that a principal point of the plot was to prepare a party within the realm, that might adhere to the foreigner; and that the seminaries began to blossom, and to send forth daily priests, and professed men, who should by vow taken at shrift, reconcile her subjects from their obedience; yea, and bind many of them to attempt |